Designing the State

Every political system makes use of design and architecture to establish its values, and its beliefs. It’s both a cultural issue, a question of projecting identity, as well as a commercial one. Deyan Sudjic looks at how this long term relationship between power and design has evolved, and its lessons for contemporary society.

The so called creative industries are now citied by governments from Beijing to Edinburgh as the only economic future for a modern economy. The way that a society presents itself is not a mere cosmetic, but a reflection of its values and its cohesion.